Relative Hell
by VP
Summary: Angel is punished by being sent to hell, but what is hell other than the absense of hope? B/A yumminess!


Title: Relative Hell  
  
Author:VP  
  
E-Mail:Devilsangel67292@aol.com  
  
Spoilers:Seasons 1-2 of Buffy.  
  
Disclaimer:I own nothing  
  
Rating:R  
  
Couple:B/A  
  
Distribution:Want it. take it. Just tell me where it is going.  
  
Author's Note: I havn't posted anything in a long time. This is told from Angel's point of view.  
  
feedback: PLEASE oh PLEase!  
  
Summary: Hell is relative in this story and the powers bring Angel back a little early in Earth time.  
  
Author's Note: I had sent this out a long time ago to the groups, but then I remembered that I didn't post it here and not everyone subscribes to the same groups I do..  
  
Here we go... indicated thoughts   
  
Prologue:  
  
Time. Everything relies on it. When we die we used up all of it, when we are born we have a lot left. Everything in my life/unlife goes back to it. I thought I had an endless time to be young and stupid when I was growing up, and then when I did have forever, I didn't want it. I wasted it on death and suffering. The hundred years after I was cursed were definitely high on my 'bad time' list. What's on my 'good-time' list? All the nights with Buffy rank up there. There wasn't a thing I'd rather be doing then being with her. I regretted the time we'd been apart. But it seemed like only seconds to me. For her, it lasted longer. The pain of not having me as me lasted months. Months of torture and suffering. But for me, it was only seconds. When I awoke and felt her near me, It was as if Angelus hadn't come back. It felt like it was still that night, her birthday. It took only seconds for her to realize what she had to do while she looked behind me into Acathla's mouth, and all my trust was squashed in seconds because I didn't understand about time, and what I'd done while I wasn't aware.  
  
Part 1  
  
AU: Sunnydale 1999 {All will make sense soon.}  
  
2 years had passed since I first arrived in Sunnydale. The slayer had been great. Everyone had. The whole scooby group accepted me fully. I was part of the gang. There was Willow, who absolutely loved seeing me kick the ass out of demons. Xander was always intimidated by me until I finally told him that I was in no way interested in Faith. Don't get me wrong, the slayer is a great girl, she's just not my type. I don't have a type anymore. I'm dead. I killed thousands. I don't deserve love, not that she'd give it to me. She is head over heals for that boy. I don't understand what the attraction is to tell you the truth.  
  
Willow was jealous for awhile until she met Oz. He is fabulous at saying one thing and making everyone ponder it for hours. One liners are his specialty. Willow is the computer wiz along with Miss. Calendar. Techno-pagans... got to love them.   
  
Faith is faith. She believes in everything and needs no explanations for the way she or anyone else feels. She gives me hope for some odd reason. I don't understand it. Maybe it is a slayer thing. But the last slayer I met, I killed. Not only killed her, but tortured her inside and out. I sent her through all the kinds of pain someone could go through. I loved her and it ate Angelus alive. She didn't even know who she was, or why he/I targeted her. Because of me she never got the chance to get called. I used her for my sick little game and spit her out. She was light and purity, and I-my demon- ruined her. I spoiled her for the world. It is easier to blame the demon, but I know it's my fault too. I let it happen, I took back seat. Her trusting eyes will haunt me forever. The way she peered into my soul still chills me just thinking about it, even when I didn't know I was hiding there. The first moment she looked at me, was the moment I felt. For a long time it had just been Angelus. He ruled completely over mind and body. But when she looked at me with her green eyes, she gave me control. Not that much, but I knew what was going on. And it hurt even more when I was powerless to stop Angelus in spite of my love for his slayer, no, my woman.  
  
&&&  
  
Faith: Hurry up Xander. We are going to be late! Giles wants us there like five minutes ago.  
  
Faith called to her boy toy as he finished getting dressed. They were the perfect couple, they fought together. He wasn't all that strong, but he tried. And then on slow nights they would make out, or on nights that Angel would take up the fight to give them some alone time. Being a senior kicked ass!  
  
Xander: I am coming. I just have to finish shaving.  
  
Willow rolled her eyes. Leaning back on her friend's bed, she looked to Faith. The girl had saved their lives many times and would always be one of Willow's best buds.  
  
Willow: What is this meeting about anyway?  
  
Faith: I have no idea.  
  
Xander called from the other room: Giles said something about a past slayer. A vampire I think. Won't she be fun?  
  
Faith:Or extremely hard to kill!  
  
%%%  
  
I was sitting in a chair in the library when the gang arrived. Night had fallen about 45 minutes ago. This was another nightly meeting. Nothing looked special about it, just another dull demon of the week. I was in for a surprise.  
  
Faith, Xander and Willow were the last to arrive. Oz was on vacation with his cousins.  
  
Xander:So what is the big evil this time?  
  
Giles opened a book and pointed to a picture. I could have fallen over from shock. There she was, my angel... Buffy. I tried in vane to grab control over myself.  
  
Xander:Who is the hottie?  
  
Faith knocked him hard in the ribs, which I would have done myself if I wasn't trying to pretend I didn't know who this was.  
  
Faith:Shut up.  
  
Xander chuckled despite the pain in his body.  
  
Giles:That is Elizabeth Summers. She was a slayer in the early 19th century. Around 1820 in England. She lived in Wales until she was turned.  
  
I froze even more. My skin is usually cold, but I swear that it felt like I was an ice cube! It was her, and we were probably coming up against her sometime soon. I had turned her, but I doubted they knew that. I hoped they had no clue, but I wasn't so sure.  
  
Jenny: So?  
  
Giles: She was called for a day before she was changed. I don't know what the details are, or how it happened that the council didn't protect her. She is ruthless, a perfect combination of slayer powers and evil.   
  
Giles' tone turned for the worse at his last statement. He felt party responsible. I don't know why. Maybe it is the bond he feels for Faith. It must be something to do with wanting to protect his slayer. He can't imagine how a watcher wouldn't save the girl. He feels like someone from the past let him down. If he only knew it was me who let him down, but I won't be sharing that little bit of information. Besides, even if I did tell Giles that technically she never met her watcher because I killed him before she could meet him then we'd have a mess on our hands. Killing a watcher is almost as grave as killing a slayer.  
  
Xander looked on in total cluelessness. It's one of the reasons I like him so much.  
  
Giles elaborated: Think Angel plus Faith and the you will get Buffy. She is vampire, but slayer. It drove her insane to have both destinies ripping at her. Her sire didn't stay around long, I don't think we even know who it is actually, so she was alone for awhile to continue her loss.  
  
Faith: Wait, who's Buffy? You said her name was Elizabeth.   
  
Giles: Buffy is what she likes to go by. I've heard rumors that it was the name her sire used for her. Obviously she liked it and him or her.  
  
That last statement cut me deeply. I was the one to start calling her that and she had loved it. Why would she continue to use it after what I did to her? How could she do that? I know that after I got my soul back I should have looked for her, but I couldn't face her. She wasn't the same person that I loved. She was a vampire and I didn't think it was possible to love a vampire. Somewhere, I know she'd locked up inside just as I was. She'd never forgive me anyway.  
  
Faith: I thought you said he didn't stick around? So how could he give her a nickname?  
  
Giles: He seduced her as a human and once she was turned, he fled.  
  
Can't they just shut up about this? There is only so much torture I can endure before I feel like hitting myself with a pointy stick or taking a daytime stroll without the sunscreen.  
  
Faith: So, this vampire made her and then left. Don't they usually stick around for training? You'd think once he bagged himself a slayer he would have taken pride in it and showcased it around town.  
  
Giles:That is the usual procedure for vampires, but Buffy was different. She's split between loyalties. She kills everyone, doesn't discriminate between vampire, demon or human. She works alone and loves death, worships it.  
  
Willow: And her new home is good old Sunnydale.  
  
Giles: She has been rumored to be on her way for the ascension. Normally she doesn't come for events like this, but she wants to be in on all the impending doom. She won't be working with the mayor, so she will be harder to find.  
  
I can't stand straight, or move. She is here, I can feel her presence in town. I don't know if she'll remember me, and if she does will she hate me? Would she kill me? Do I blame her? I turned her and left her there to figure things out on her own. I made her love me, I pretended to love her and then I fucked her. It had been nice and slow at first, but in that one night I took her places I had never been before as a demon. She could handle it, and that's when I knew who she was. She was the slayer, the girl Darla had droned on and on about. A normal kill turned to a something even more twisted. I told her who I was, who she was and then I showed her who I was, who she was. And as my fangs pierced her butter soft skin, I reveled in her death. Her death was what haunted me the most. She trusted me, my demon, with everything she had. Her whole heart and soul believed in the facade Angelus put up. I did a good job at fooling her. Even when I killed her and changed her I could see the disbelief and confusion in her eyes. Then I left. At the time I didn't know why, but now I do. Angelus loves that girl as much as I do.  
  
Jenny:Angel? hello? Anybody in there?  
  
She pulled em out of my reverie. I had been standing there like an idiot for a long time. Could I really tell them that it was me? That I turned the slayer? I wouldn't blame them for killing me if I told them. And that started the train of lies...  
  
Angel: Sorry. i was distracted. Where can we find her?  
  
Giles: I don't know. I think that we should go patrolling tonight. All of us. She won't be expecting it on her first night in town.  
  
And I just stood there. I couldn't kill her, I made her. A part of me loved her, more like the whoel thing!She was everything I had been looking for as a human, I wished only that I'd met her when I was one. I was convinced that watching Faith kill her would kill apart of me. She was me. Her pain, her tortured life...it was everything I feel now with my soul.  
  
Xander:Earth to Angel!   
  
I snapped out of it again. Angel: I don't get a good feeling about this. I-  
  
Jenny:Maybe you should rest for awhile. You don't look so good.  
  
I know I looked really bad, but I didn't think it was that horrible.  
  
Xander:And I thought vampires didn't get sick  
  
Angel: We don't.  
  
And with that I left, totally unaware of the conversations that went on behind my back.  
  
&&&  
  
I couldn't go straight home. A part of me wanted to see her, just to watch her for a moment. The irony that we never met at the right time wasn't lost on me. When she had a soul, I was soulless. Now that I've got a soul, she's soulless and because of me. How many things must I screw up before I get anything right?  
  
Walking, thinking and walking were the only things I did that night. I constantly walked on. Would she look the same? Would she remember who I was? Would she know me as her sire? Would she want me dead? Would she try and make me evil again as she was? Would she kill me? Would I be forced to kill her? Question after question plagued me. I barely got home in time for sunrise.  
  
My apartment was pitch black as I entered. Something was off though, something was different. Some little piece of something was there. Something I thought I'd lost. This boiling feeling rose in my skin and then I knew. She was here. She had been waiting for me. But why?  
  
End of 1  
  
&&&  
  
Start of 2  
  
Faith: No luck. I wish she'd just show up so I could kill her.  
  
Giles: She'll try to warp you. She uses mind tricks to get to her victims. She was a slayer too Faith. I'd be careful.  
  
Xander: I have faith in F-  
  
Jenny: If you finish that line one more time I am going to pound you into the ground Harris.  
  
Xander was silent as the rest of the gang sauntered through the cemetery searching for tonight's hunter. There was nothing else to do than gossip.  
  
Willow: What was with Angel tonight?  
  
Jenny: He was giving me the wiggins.  
  
Giles rolled his eyes at her choice of words: Something has been off with him for awhile. I haven't said anything because I didn't want to believe it.  
  
Willow: He was so different when he first arrived. He had this kind of enthusiasm that's gone now.  
  
Faith:I hadn't noticed.  
  
&&&  
  
I stood perfectly still and waited until she made a move. Would she talk, would she throw a stake at me? Would I stake myself on principal? I didn't want to fight and if she wanted me dead, I'd do it before she had the chance. I wouldn't want my death on her conscience if she ever did get turned back and gain her soul.   
  
"Hey." She Spoke! Her words were like nectar flowing up into my ear. It was heavenly. And for a moment I forgot what I did, and why she was still alive.  
  
"Buffy-" I couldn't move anymore. The words escaped my lips in a whisper. She was like glue, everything that was falling apart was put back together. It didn't matter that it was messy, it was stuck in place.  
  
I could hear her getting of of my bed. She was in my bed, the place I slept! I could smell the familiar scent of vanilla that had eluded me for centuries. I could feel her moving closer, yet I was stone. I couldn't tell her intentions. I didn't think she was armed, but she might be.  
  
"It's been awhile." She was testing me. I couldn't believe it, but she was just as clueless as to where this conversation was going to go as I was. She didn't know about my soul. I could tell she didn't know. I could smell her need rising. She wanted me in a very primal way. God, how I wanted her too. I shouldn't, but I did. the wrongness didn't make a difference. The situation was a spider web, one wrong move and it would break and we'd all fall.  
  
"Long time." My eyes closed as I tried to imagine her face when it was loving and trusting, when she was human. I couldn't see her yet, but that face made me smile, even though it wasn't the same person. It couldn't be my Buffy, just like I could never be her Angel. I was evil and horrible, and I used her like a piece of meat. That's all she was, a meal. But even after that I know I still had feelings for her, vampire or human. It didn't make sense.  
  
"What are you doing in Sunnydale?" She was questioning and I knew the reason behind it. She wanted to know if I was involved in the Ascension. She yearned to know what I was like now and to be a part of it. God help me, but she still loved me. Her breath caught in her throat just waiting for my reply, she didn't have to breath. Around me she felt like she did though. It held onto the allusion for both of us. It was like white out over my sins.  
  
I couldn't lie to her. Damn it! I can lie to everyone else, but not her. The words tumbled out of my mouth."Helping the slayer."  
  
She laughed, it was cold and hard. My spine tingled at it. She was thoroughly amused that I was helping the slayer "Who is she?" The question was in awe. The unspoken one lay underneath that I couldn't answer for her because the question was so ridiculous. 'What does she have that I don't?' The answer, 'nothing, you're the one who has more.'  
  
I thought she wasn't going to ask, but she did. I felt my heart shudder. She still cared about me. She was jealous and angry at herself for not being enough for me. I wanted to hold her and tell her she was wrong, but things were so muddled and I was so lost. "It isn't her."  
  
I regretted it right away. I made it sound as if something was wrong with her. That it wasn't a matter of her having something Buffy didn't, but a matter of Buffy lacking something everyone was supposed to have. I kept digging the hole of pain deeper and deeper.  
  
"Oh." She moved to the left and I knew she was going for the door. Don't leave! My body screamed at me to make her stay, to tell her how much I-Angel- not the vampire, but the man- loved her. I loved her as a human, as a slayer, as a demon. There was something there I could not touch. Something I could not have anymore.  
  
"It's me. I've changed. I've been cursed..." She kept going towards the door. She didn't get what I was saying. I didn't plan on telling her about my soul, but I did anyway. "With a soul." And that made her stop. I could feel her body tense in the room as if it was my own. I only wished that I could see her, read her expression, she the shock or hatred. But I didn't need to see, because I heard it. The single tear that rolled down her chin crushed me. I didn't know what it was for, what did she think? What was going through her mind? I had no clue.   
  
"Sorry, I bothered you." And it clicked. She came to see me because she loved me. She loved the demon and it scared her. She was a demon herself, but she still retained that innocence that drew me to her. For some reason, she felt, she cared, she loved... me! And a part of her thought that only the demon would want her. She thought she wasn't good enough for anything but that horrible demon. I wanted to hold her and tell her how wrong she was, but I couldn't.   
  
Buffy had come to Sunnydale not for the Ascension but for me. She had heard I was here and she came running. Buffy hoped that the demon in me would still want her if she acted like she was when I first met her. That if she was the same girl I used and battered, that my demon would want her. She was so wrong, and doomed to the same fate I was. We both loved someone that we didn't know. We didn't know who each other were. I didn't know her, but my demon knew exactly who she was and I still loved her. And she didn't know me as anything but the demon, but her demon loved me as a souled vampire. It was full of twists and bends and sharp jagged cliffs ready for us to fall right over.  
  
I didn't deserve her love, and I didn't know where the strength and courage came from when I saw her. I still don't know, but it was there. I wouldn't let her go. It might be another 200 years before we crossed paths again.  
  
"Don't go." I called to her and she didn't move. She didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know what I was doing. "Stay in Sunnydale-here... with me. Please?" I was poking at the embers of a dying fire, just praying it would catch. I added the please to the end for dramatic effect.  
  
"You want me?... to stay?" She was lost and confused, as was I."-with you?"  
  
"I want you period." We hadn't touched since she got here but the wanting to do so was almost tangible. I had said what was in my heart and it was up to her.   
  
"What? Why?" She thought I hated her, that I tortured her. It wasn't me, but it was me.  
  
"I'm sorry. For everything I've done to you. It wasn't me, it-I know that's no excuse, but I'm not the same person, I've got-"  
  
"-a soul." Buffy finished for me. She knew, I had just told her. But did she understand? Was she too evil to love me like I did her? Would this be a repeat performance but with switched parts?  
  
When she didn't move to go out the door, I took it was a sign that she was staying. The sweet misery I faced in that second was unbearable. I loved her since the moment he laid eyes on her, but I could never have her, not the version I wanted. But she was still Buffy. She was still-she still reminded me of the woman I loved while trapped. And I must have reminded her of the person she loved as a human. It was the only explanation that fit. I couldn't accept that we loved each other no matter who was demon or human or slayer or evil or with soul. It wouldn't process because I didn't think I deserved that kind of love.  
  
"The sun is up." I looked to the ceiling as if it was there above us as a constant threat.  
  
"I guess that means I'm stuck here with you." The bitterness shocked me. For a moment I thought things could have been as they were while I watched through my window. While I watched through him at what I always wanted. That's what made him leave. He left her to rot after changing her because he knew it would provide me with the most torture to not see her but know what he did, what we did.  
  
"Not that that isn't exactly where I want to be." I felt her sudden hug. It was tight and warm, even though she wasn't. Her tiny arms were fastened securely around my waist. And I could feel her smiling into my chest. Suddenly I wished I didn't have on so many clothes. My nose was in her hair and for the first time in a long time I could smell it, and I got to chose where I put my hands on her body, and I got to choose how tightly I held her, And it was me who she had her arms around.  
  
"God, Buffy I missed you so much." The words came out like a chant. A sacred secret phrase that I never thought I'd be saying to her with love.  
  
"That bed looks awful lonely with us not in it, don't you think?" She looked up to see my face, but still it wasn't seeable. I could see her form but not her face, not her lips or her eyes or her nose, I love that nose! I wanted to see her, to see who she had become and for her to see me. I needed to know if she would still want me if she saw me for who I had become.  
  
"Yep, it s-" I couldn't finish my words because her mouth descended upon mine like an army. An army of soft skin that tasted like strawberries on a cool summer day. She was that summer day to me.  
  
Her tongue was warm and it made me wonder. why didn't I notice it sooner. She was warm! She wasn't breathing for effect, she was breathing for real! She was-  
  
&&&&&&&&&&  
  
Giles: Angel, are you okay?  
  
Xander: Must have been good daydream to keep you out of it for that long.  
  
I shook my head. It wasn't real! I could have died again right there. Stake me now, let me bleed all over the floor! Let me die, let me pay! God, let me pay! I want to pay for everything I've done. I don't deserve to be here with people who care about me! I don't deserve to be alive! I don't deserve to be existing right now. I should be dead, buried in the ground. And she should be too, but she isn't. Because of me! It was me who wanted to be bitten, it was me who let Darla turn me. It is me, the source of all my pain, all the pain-It isn't the demon. It's the man. It's my tainted soul.  
  
Jenny: I think we should head out and look for Miss Summers. We need to kill her before she an set up a base here in Sunnydale.  
  
Faith: Let's do it.  
  
the end of 2  
  
*&&&&  
  
The beginning of 3  
  
As me and the gang roamed the streets of Sunnydale, I was in a rut. My depression was deep seated and not going away anytime soon. I wanted out of it and the stake in my jacket provided the easiest route. I couldn't see her, she'd be different. She wouldn't be the girl I loved. She would be evil, and I'd have to come face to face with who I was-still am. I walked far enough behind them to not be seen.  
  
Willow: I am really worried about Angel. he is really off!  
  
Angel was lagging behind. Supposedly making sure they weren't being followed.  
  
Faith:Me too. He is definitely bugging about something major! We should try and talk to him. He's been out of it recently.  
  
Giles:When has he ever been 'in it' Faith?  
  
Jenny:I don't think he has been, we just thought it normal. That is until now.  
  
Willow:He keeps pushing himself away, farther and farther from us.  
  
Xander:I like it. He's a vampire. He is supposed to be distant remember?   
  
Faith:But he is good, soul remember?  
  
Giles:I fear that he is being plagued by his demons-his past. What he has done is probably not easy to live with when you get your conscience back. It must be hell.  
  
Willow:He's definitely in hell!  
  
Behind them Angel looked to the stars"I wish this wasn't real. I wish things were different, if I didn't have to do this..." but he did. Taking out the stake, he plunged it into the depths of his heart. No one in front of him even noticed the ashes blowing in the wind.  
  
&&&&&&  
  
Meanwhile in our familiar Buffyverse dimension:  
  
I opened his eyes and looked around. This was very odd. Things were floating back to me. Things I didn't remember happening, but that did. I'd spent a hundred years being tortured for my crimes against the world, but where am I?  
  
The place looked familiar enough and then I saw her.  
  
Buffy looked at the closed statue and her eyes were red with tears. "Angel?" She sobbed falling to her knees. She'd killed him. He'd died because of her. She could deal with sending Angelus to hell for all the pain he committed, but Angel was innocent and clean. He didn't have a clue what was going on. She'd taken her lamb out to slaughter.  
  
It slapped me in the face. She'd sent me to hell and that's where I've been, a make belief past torturing me more than any physical torment could. Things were different there and they tried to erase my memory of what was real, but I was back. And she was here, she looked the same she did the night she sent me to hell.  
  
It was the night she sent me to hell! They -whoever-brought me back to this exact time! A few seconds off. It seemed so unreal and fake until I felt my heart beating. No way! I'd made a wish and it had come true. I don't know what I did to deserve his, but its real. And I'm not loosing it. And best of all, I never killed her. I never turned her and I finally understand how much she loves me and blames herself for Angelus coming back. I finally get how she loves me and that only intensifies my love for her.  
  
She turned and walked to the exit. She couldn't look. I was wearing what I was tonight-this night-the night she sent me to hell. Whatever you are supposed to call it. I walked up to the statue. My sword lay a few feet away. I have been fighting with her and that's when she stabbed me.  
  
"Buffy!" I called out to her. I wasn't going to let her leave all sad and lonely. Wed work this out and plus-WOO HOOO I'm human and can have all the sex I want!  
  
The defeated Slayer turned and saw me. Her eyes glittered. And she ran to hold me. "Angel! You're hear. I sent you-"  
  
"Shhhhh" I wanted this time just to us. For some reason I had earned a place back in her life and I wasn't going to lose it this time.   
  
"You're alive." I knew she didn't know the half of it.  
  
"Yep, sure am." I placed her hand over my heart and she felt it beating. Her eyes shown brightly and she smiled. And I could see her face in all it's beauty as the sun started to rise above the horizon. It shown through the windows and onto her face.  
  
"How?" She was chocked up and I didn't understand what to say.  
  
"Hell agrees with me." I laughed and dove in for a sweet kiss. A kiss I hadn't enjoyed in 3oo years, but to her it was only seconds.  
  
THE END!!!  
  
Whatcha think??? 


End file.
